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The Sprint event in NYC started off with David Blaine submerged in a tank of water – you may remember he broke the record for length of time under water with 17 minutes and 4 seconds a few years ago on Oprah. Sprint promised they’d show off a “World First” and by Kevin’s description, I don’t think anyone’s seen something like this before:
He is chilling in a chair at a table with a glass of wine and reading Doctor Seuss, spitting fish out of his mouth.
And yes… he is doing that while underwater. Unfortunately photography and videos were not permitted during the Blaine performance, so I had to poorly photoshop the mood picture to set the scene:
But consumer electronics were the intended highlight of the show. Nevermind Blaine – what did Sprint announce? As rumored, they’ve announced the Kyocera Echo, a dual-screened Android Phone. Don’t let the Kyocera brand name fool you – this device actually looks pretty cool.
Folding out the hinge reveals 2 separate 3.5-inch screens. You can use the Echo in dual screen mode where each screen shows something separate, or use single screen mode which utilizes the full 4.7-inch diagonal dual-screen for one single view. Pretty sweet, right?
The Kyocera Echo runs Android 2.2 and at this point we won’t even ask whether or not it’ll be upgraded… that question seems too complicated as of late to entertain. It’ll be available this Sprint and I’m sure it will turn plenty of heads once available. When Sprint said they were announcing something that would turn heads, they weren’t kidding.
Stay tuned and we’ll have video and details as they emerge from the event. We wanted to getting you the feel of the event and breaking news as soon as it dropped!
you said spring instead of spring
sprint instead of spring* well there i go making the opposite mistake of you XD
Sprint just went from 0 to fail in 1.2 seconds
So its a nintendo ds phone lol
first!! cant wait to see this in person. hopefully it is a dual core phone (im sure it is)and if it is hardware accelerated then its a must have in my book!
What a God awful phone…I need to be at the Sprint store release day so I can see the fools buying that
3.5 times 2 = 7 inches. Why don’t they combine into a full 7 inches? Seems will have a lot of blank space on the screens.
Eh all the hype for some lame phone like that, I hope they have some more stuff to announce
Waiting on the specs. If it’s decent, I might finally upgrade my Hero.
gimmicky to say the least, I’d rather have just the one 4.7″ screen and not the two 3.5″ ones
@jeremy no its been confirmed with a 1 ghz second gen snapdragon processor
I don’t give a crap about turning heads, I want something that is practical and more reliable than Kyocera. What happened to HTC giving Sprint special treatment?
Just saw someone confirm it has no 4G? Nevermind then. :(
Woooooooooooooooooooooooooow! Sprint are you kidding me!? AT&T gets the Atrix, Verizon gets the Bionic, T-Mobile gets the HTC Pyramid, and we get a POS Kyocera DS phone. Sprint I am very disappoint.
To be honest its much better than I expected. Really not too bad.
This is me kicking myself for not using my upgrade before the “Premium Data” fee was applied on January 30th. Sprint better make a showing at CTIA…
Sprint has to spread the wealth allow other manufacturers to produce products for there customers. I like the idea definitely something different than everyone else. I am still awaiting my htc evo 2 4g announcement THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS RIGHT NOW… Good luck to all the people who might purchase this device sprint is great in my world.
You have got to be kidding me. No first 3d phone stateside, not even first dual core (nevermind that the other 3 major stateside carriers will all have dual core phones by spring with verizon rocking the moto bionic, att with the moto atrix, and tmo with the htc pyramid) phone stateside, but dual screen? Sometimes being different isnt always a good thing. Sometimes go with what everybody else is going with, just beat them to the punch.
Damar thats exactly what I was thinking. A 3D phone would’ve been nice, and is what I was hoping for, but Sprint could still take the first dual core phone to be RELEASED right? Of course they’ll probable save that for their beloved EVO. Blegh!
This is not really my style but it’s just cool to see the different designs that companies are coming out with for Android phones. I’m actually surprised it took this long for someone to make a dual screen phone not counting the Continuum.
Commenters are really starting to ruin this site. I guess thats what happens when you start to get traffic.
Hey no one is forcing anyone to buy this phone. It is hideous but one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Dont get all worked up over this. There are so many options out there.
@Jaswinder
It’s not trash talk. As a loyal Sprint customer (for almost 10 years) I expect my wireless carrier to be investing in awesome phones so that I have choices. I don’t wanna go prepay and sadly can’t port over. And I know that I’m not the only one in that situation. I want choices that are on par or better than the competition. I don’t think that it’s something so far out there that it must be relegated to trash talk.
seriously what the hell Sprint? I only got my Evo 4 months ago and I’m ready to upgrade to something better. I am about to go to Verizon. Lure me in with the Evo and than you shit in my breakfast cereal!
i guess the CEO just got fired after today!!!
Looked ok now dual core but a new 1ghz snapdragon. Personally i would have been more wowed if they annoced my epic was finally going to get froyo. How are you supposed to use this ds look alike like a mini laptop if ithas no 4g connection. Hopefully it will at least have wifi. Geez sprint really slacking on this one
yeah, i have to agree with most other people on here that I didn’t really find anything exciting about this device. And in some ways, I found it less exciting than another standard device introduction. I don’t care for the gimmicky nature of the device. Its like the Nintendo DS (which I don’t care for either). I couldn’t stand the Motorola Back-Flip design.
ugh, where are the great product designers? HTC seems to still reign supreme (well, with the exception of those folks in Cupertino).
Can I flip it to have the screens facing outwards & play Battleship with a friend?
Have to agree with 21 and 22. Not my cup of tea but people are taking this like a kick to the nuts.
Im not so sure why people are bitching…Verizon & At&t FINALLY got copies of the EVO. Calm down.
Lol, this is so awful
Looks like a fun device
@ 3 phones, i wish people will stop calling the Desire HD an EVO copy, when its not, its more powerful, different design, different version of Sense and better body design complete with unibody aluminum plus has the newer Snapdragon which can get on avg a 1900+ quadrant score.
it might look like one to everyone and there cat, but designs on 4.3 screen devices are not really limitless since manufacturers try to use as less space as possible for the bezel for said designs to make it more portable, it is a phone after all, not a tablet.
that being said its hard to make something besides a device that looks like the evo when it seems to be that much of a standard design for that size of a screen, and the EVO was the first to incorporate that size of a design
call it an EVO all you want, but its not and we all know that.
now to get back to the article, i would have much preferred something from HTC like an industry first 3D phone with 3D camera, yes they have the LG Optimus 3D but its not out yet, so its not necessarily the first 3D phone yet.
Droid Bionic was the first LTE phone to be announced at Motorola’s press event the day before HTC’s announcement of the ThunderBolt, but since the ThunderBolt is coming out first, its still the first LTE phone.
so while i’m not a fan of the EVO becuase of all its fanboi’s *cough* richard *cough* I do like the phone itself mainly because its HTC and its a sense device with a 4.3″ screen but the EVO has the ugliest Sprint buttons on any HTC phone. but if an EVO2 were announced at CTIA or even at MWC that has 3D capability with a glasses free screen, i’d leave Verizon since coverage here with both Sprint and Verizon are identical, i wouldn’t really lose out on who my carrier is, but AT&T is horrible here.
I’m still holding out for HTC announcements as well
(ie: Incredible 2 as well as the Sense 2.0 upgrades that were rumored back in December which are starting to come to fruition with today’s announcement of them purchasing Saffron media and investing in OnLIVE)
only 7 more days!
The HTC EVO has a 4.3′ inch screen alone which is not much less than 4.7’inches with 2 screens combined, so unless the echo’s system specs are significantly more than the Evo, why not just get an Evo? That being said, this phone will probably have a core audience since it has a lot of mobile gaming potential (Can you say Nintendo DS?)
I actually had high hopes when I first read the announcement about sprint having an industry first. All the cards seemed to fall into place. I questioned the inclusion of David Blaine in the beginning but figured this guy was a magician who turned into a world record settler. So I figured how did this play out?….
02-07-11?
02 networks. Wimax & LTE?
07 7 new phones? Windows 7?
11 hours talk time? that would be an industry first I think lol.
Then I read the last line….Drinks and gourmet cuisines? I lost all faith right there. Sounded like they were trying to over hype the situation. Kinda like how Steve Balmer runs on stage and gets everyone psyched up for Microsoft’s next mediocre product. I knew it was gonna be a wild ride.
I wonder how the hell can Dan legally cause sprint to commit suicide?
I think it’s time sprint users hit up facebook and twitter and plan a mass exodus.
That will be a industry first.
Only way I would use this if is if the screens joined and had less space in between. I dont like doing dual monitors for the same reason.
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I dont know….some may like it, just to be different. One thing tho….you gotta hand it to Android for giving ppl choices….lol
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I may be going Sprint or AT&T for better service. Looks like I may give AT&T more attention now…or stick with Verizon and hope LTE gives me better reception.
Disappointing…..where’s Sprints dual core phone? Love the EVO but how long before we get a dual core 4g handset? If all 3 other carriers already have EVO clones, why can’t Sprint get an Atrix clone? Sprint falling behind. They have the best plans and good coverage, where are the handsets???
Want a bigger screen for your android? Get a galaxy tab……..
WTF Dual screen not dual core? c’mon, this looks great but if your selling point is friggen multitasking get a processor that will carry it further…